Mighty Ships

With a specialized crane system and five propellers to counter heavy seas, North Sea Giant can perform powerful and precise lifts in seas as high as 4.5 metres – four times the capability of other such vessels. On this voyage, she’s out to lift and install the final massive module of the world’s first subsea gas compression station nearly 300 metres underwater. But when strong winds and currents threaten the delicate operation, her team of underwater robots must come to the rescue before the module crashes the entire project!

Tønsberg carries anything that can be rolled up her ramp: not just automobiles and bulldozers, but also heavy, awkward-sized cargo such as cranes, subway trains, or yachts. In some of the busiest ro-ro ports in Europe, Tønsberg’s crew rushes to overcome the obstacles that could delay her. Sailing across the Atlantic, two storms threaten to cross her path as the crew keeps a sharp eye on the lashings that hold the cargo in place.

Almost three football fields long, the USNS Comfort is second in size only to U.S. Navy aircraft carriers. She is the largest hospital ship on the planet, with up to 1,200 crew, 12 operating rooms, 1,000 beds, and an impressive array of medical equipment. MIGHTY SHIPS joins the USNS Comfort midway through “Operation Continuing Promise” – a six-month mission to provide humanitarian aid to 11 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. Sailing to the tiny Caribbean island of Dominica, Comfort’s crew sets out to aid 10,000 patients in just nine days.

Northern Leader is Alaska’s biggest and toughest longliner. Catching fish with hooks, not nets, she sends out 80 kilometres of fishing line containing 76,000 hooks. In the heart of the Bering Sea, her crew battles a hurricane with 13 metre-high waves and winds of more than 110 kilometres per hour. All the while, this 56-metre ship keeps fishing – bringing home a massive catch of Pacific Cod – until one deckhand working is washed out by a powerful wave.

One of the world’s most advanced drill ships builds an oil well more than 2000 metres below the waterline in the Gulf of Mexico.

The world’s most adventurous cruise ship fights through the ice-choked fjords of Greenland to visit a spectacular collection of wildlife and icebergs.